Chapter 361
Translator: Ace
Chapter: 361
Chapter Title: It's Somewhere
"So that's how it is..."
Yeon Ja-kyeong ignited the Samadhi True Fire to burn the messenger pigeon to ash.
It had been worth sending out one of the fastest and longest-flying birds among his pigeons.
The message Yeo Hong-gi had sent arrived in Yeon Ja-kyeong's hands in less than a day, only to vanish like this.
Yeon Ja-kyeong gazed at one spot on the wall of his office.
A small secret compartment hidden via a mechanical device.
Inside it lay the Self-Light Mountain-Dissolving Poison.
A tiny amount of the dissolving poison and its antidote were kept in Yeon Ja-kyeong's possession.
"It was a vicious dissolving poison, but..."
Yeon Ja-kyeong suddenly recalled what had happened after Yeo Hong-gi left.
Just like last time.
He had tested the Self-Light Mountain-Dissolving Poison on himself.
The unfinished version had allowed him to circulate his internal energy before the poison's effects wore off.
Thanks to that, he had gained a clue to a new realm.
But.
This was not the Self-Light Mountain-Dissolving Poison.
No matter what he tried, his internal energy wouldn't return.
It wasn't until a full day had passed.
That his dantian and internal energy miraculously returned.
The efforts to reclaim his internal energy while it was gone.
Had become a form of training in itself.
But unlike the unfinished product, he hadn't been able to break it in the end.
That was why, as per Yeo Hong-gi's report, he thought it might work on Ha Mu-baek too.
And indeed, it had worked on both Ha Mu-baek, who had come searching for the Heavenly Poison Valley, and the savage from the Southern Barbarians.
Encouraging news.
'I was right to bring Valley Lord Yeo under my command.'
Yeon Ja-kyeong felt renewed confidence in his eye for talent.
A smile spread across Yeon Ja-kyeong's face.
A smile mingled with ambition and satisfaction.
'Vicious stuff.'
Ha Mu-baek had no choice but to admit it.
He had tried every trick in the book.
But his dantian still wouldn't respond.
Not a scrap of internal energy left in his body.
A full day.
If he had to endure this for that long.
Myo Gu-eung.
He would miss his chance to capture that bastard easily.
He couldn't let that happen.
Ha Mu-baek delved deep into his inner self, contemplating his being.
His empty interior.
It shouldn't be empty, yet it was.
Just because he couldn't feel it now didn't mean it was gone.
It existed, but in a state he couldn't locate.
'It's there. Somewhere.'
Ha Mu-baek didn't rush.
Rushing in urgency could lead to careless mistakes.
They say the more urgent, the slower you go.
Ha Mu-baek methodically examined his interior, counting each part like beads on a string.
Taking the opportunity for a spring cleaning of his inner self.
Even resolving to tidy up the neglected corners.
As he slowly combed through every inch.
Finally, two faint traces caught his attention.
A barely perceptible trace of fiery energy and one of icy energy.
The fiery and icy energies he had absorbed via the Infinite Free Heart Method.
And.
'What an idiot I am.'
Ha Mu-baek berated himself.
The other internal energy method he had acquired on his northern sea expedition.
Having focused on his sect's Infinite Free Heart Method, he hadn't thought of this new power despite gaining it.
Ice Crystal Radiant Great Heavenly Power.
It was an internal energy method, yet not quite.
A great technique for wielding radiant energy.
Fiery and icy energies that were internal energy yet distinct, independent forces.
Now that he had gathered all the shards of radiance to complete it, it was simply the Radiant Great Heavenly Power.
It was there.
Ha Mu-baek began circulating the Radiant Great Heavenly Power.
The faint traces of fiery and icy energy he had detected responded.
The Radiant Great Heavenly Power, which had reached a certain level in a single day at the Ice Heaven Palace.
Now he poured time into it once more.
The fiery and icy energies, which had seemed like mere remnants, began to trickle out thread by thread and move.
A single strand of fiery energy, a single strand of icy energy.
The two chased each other.
They slowly swirled, biting at each other's tails.
The strands unraveling one by one grew thicker.
'So that's where it was.'
Tracing back against the flow of energy spilling out like an unraveling thread.
There lay his dantian.
Ha Mu-baek's dantian, brimming with vast energy.
However.
The door was firmly sealed.
The dissolving poison had become the lock barring the door.
Through the cracks, fiery and icy energies leaked out.
Even the dissolving poison couldn't block that.
Not internal energy.
Pure energy, perhaps?
The energies of the Dragon Training and Ice Crystal.
He had thought they were fully assimilated into his own via the Infinite Free Heart Method.
Yet their essence remained pure energy.
Thus, they evaded the dissolving poison's effects, growing larger under the guidance of the Radiant Great Heavenly Power.
The bigger the energy grew, the faster it moved.
The massive fiery and icy energies.
They swirled rapidly, finally biting each other's tails firmly.
Forming a Taiji-like shape as they spun.
They coalesced into a solid orb.
Like another dantian beside his own.
Like a divine beast's inner core.
He would think of a name for it later.
It wasn't important right now.
The condensed energy took firm root inside Ha Mu-baek.
Which meant.
The dissolving poison was utterly useless.
Ha Mu-baek's eyes snapped open.
Red and blue glows poured from them.
He rose from his cross-legged position.
And strode out with steady steps.
Sensing his movement, Dang Ja-cheong emerged from their temporary shelter.
Ha Mu-baek's body was wreathed in heat-haze-like energy.
"You..."
There was still some time left until the full day Yeo Hong-gi had mentioned.
Yet here he was, internal energy restored.
Feeling the energy Ha Mu-baek emanated, Yeo Hong-gi appeared with his poison pigeon.
Upon confirming Ha Mu-baek's state, his eyes widened in shock.
"H-How..."
Yeo Hong-gi trembled, his voice filled with astonishment.
"Not bad."
Ha Mu-baek glanced at Yeo Hong-gi and tossed out the words.
Then turned his body.
Now it was time to hunt.
Myo Gu-eung.
There was still time before the full day was up.
He couldn't miss this chance while the enemy hadn't recovered his internal energy.
Ha Mu-baek leaped forward.
No need to extend his senses to track the trail.
The blackened, withered corpses of creatures.
Marked the path Myo Gu-eung had fled.
Ha Mu-baek raced along it.
His eyebrows twitched.
'Strange sense of disconnect. Can't help it for now, huh?'
He had used the Radiant Great Heavenly Power to form another dantian with fiery and icy energies.
Unavoidably different from the internal energy that had been one with his body until now.
Still, Ha Mu-baek had to move.
No reason to take the hard road when the easy one existed.
In an instant, he shot forward across the ground.
A small cave came into view.
'Is that it?'
Outside the cave lay the corpse of a bear killed by poison.
He extended his senses again.
Slowly expanding the domain.
When it reached the cave.
Ha Mu-baek's face twisted in a scowl.
Clearly struck by the dissolving poison and stripped of internal energy.
Yet he sensed an immense poisonous aura within.
'Similar to me?'
Unable to release internal energy.
But utilizing innate body energy.
Ha Mu-baek accelerated further.
Whoosh.
Flames erupted in his right hand.
The moment Myo Gu-eung rose, he spewed poisonous energy from his entire body.
And began to move.
Intending to wipe them all out in one go.
Ha Mu-baek, was it?
That guy's actions had left an impression.
The moment he felt threatened, he swung his sword without hesitation.
Uncharacteristic of a prestige-obsessed orthodox warrior.
His demeanor felt more like a battle-hardened soldier from the battlefield.
"I need to do the same."
Myo Gu-eung muttered softly.
The vengeful fury seated deep in his chest.
This rage he planned to unleash across the Central Plains beyond the Heavenly Poison Valley.
He had to melt everything from the start.
He had learned his lesson the hard way.
That was why he had fallen to that pathetic dissolving poison from the Tang Clan's young master.
Though it had turned into fortune, elevating his Myo Huang Tal Baek Myeong Poison Art.
With his mind set, Myo Gu-eung advanced, emanating energy as if to melt everything in his path.
The moment he stepped out of the short cave.
He witnessed a massive blaze surging toward him.
Sudden as it was.
Myo Gu-eung didn't panic.
Didn't he have his surging poisonous miasma?
With a casual wave of his hand.
Black fog swirled, blocking the ferocious flames.
Boom!
The air roared, and the earth trembled.
Myo Gu-eung peered beyond the flames.
"So it is you after all..."
The instant he saw the flames, he knew intuitively.
Not just him—the bastard had escaped the dissolving poison too.
"Recovered fast."
Ha Mu-baek said, displeased.
Regardless, the flames at his fingertips surged fiercer.
Myo Gu-eung was no pushover.
Poisonous fog blanketed everything.
Rumble!
Sizzle. Hiss.
The poison burned.
The flames subsided.
Their energies clashed relentlessly without yielding an inch.
"Monster of a guy."
Myo Gu-eung muttered, staring at Ha Mu-baek.
For someone to stand against his power, forged from absorbing the Eternal Poison Crystal—and this being the first.
He could hardly believe it.
Surely there weren't more like this in the Central Plains?
The thought flashed briefly.
Then he dismissed it.
At least the skills of the Sichuan Tang Clan's young master and the Heavenly Poison Valley's lord had been as expected.
Considering their status in the martial world.
This bastard before him was the monster.
But.
What did it matter if there was only one?
Above all.
This guy wasn't his vengeance target.
He had merely blocked his path at the Heavenly Poison Valley.
A fact he had momentarily forgotten.
When he erased the Central Plains.
This one would go too.
But right now, Myo Gu-eung's goal was to erase the Heavenly Poison Valley.
No reason to brawl with this guy here.
"Try blocking this!"
Black poisonous energy billowed from every pore.
Turning to fog, then clouds, spreading everywhere.
Roar!
Shattering Soul unfolded.
With a sword drawn in an instant.
Based on fiery energy wielded by Radiant Great Heavenly Power.
The Shattering Soul of Infinite Free Eight Ultimate Sword Sea extended.
However.
The amount of energy Myo Gu-eung unleashed was overwhelming.
Though Ha Mu-baek deployed Shattering Soul intent on containing it all.
Poison slipped through the net, riding the wind and air currents.
Flowing around to Ha Mu-baek's back.
And at the end of that path.
Lay the Heavenly Poison Valley.
"Damn it."
Ha Mu-baek cursed and turned.
He had to block that poison.
Ha Mu-baek was currently channeling fiery energy.
The poison Myo Gu-eung spewed reached around him but burned away completely.
Ha Mu-baek was immune to Myo Gu-eung's poison right now.
But.
Dang Ja-cheong and Dang Ji-yeon were not.
This massive poisonous energy.
Who knew what it would do to them.
Even with their poison resistance beads and bodies impervious to ten thousand poisons.
As Ha Mu-baek moved to kick off the ground.
Black clouds descended from the sky.
"Where do you think you're going? Face me here!"
Myo Gu-eung's poison surrounded Ha Mu-baek on all sides.
As Ha Mu-baek swung his sword and arms, fierce flames roared in response.
Burning away Myo Gu-eung's poison like that.
But the endless influx grabbed at his ankles.
Ha Mu-baek gritted his teeth.
His mind growing impatient bit by bit.
Myo Gu-eung, with a composed expression, focused solely on restraining him.
All the while continuously sending poison toward the Heavenly Poison Valley behind Ha Mu-baek.
This would make Ha Mu-baek anxious, eventually throwing him off balance.
And indeed, Myo Gu-eung's intent was working somewhat.
Ha Mu-baek subtly felt the pressure to hurry.
Having promised the Tang Clan head to protect Dang Ja-cheong and Dang Ji-yeon.
Ha Mu-baek was one to keep his word.
With danger looming over them now.
He had no choice but to feel the urgency.
However.
His movements didn't falter.
He had too much experience built up for that.
'Panic and haste are poison themselves. Right now, I have to trust those two elders.'
Ha Mu-baek still gritted his teeth.
The fiery energy emanating from his body blazed even fiercer toward Myo Gu-eung's poison.